Dressed in flowers and gifts,
grand gestures and travels.
You need me, she demands,
as her needs devour mine.

She placed the crown upon my head,
pressed it down till it bled.
“Look what I give you,” she says,
as if a gift and a wound are the same.

She never names her cost
but oh, do I pay.

She calls me her queen
as she tightens the chains,
ignites me,
then damns me for burning.

I let her backstage
into a world that wasn’t hers,
and she fell through the floorboards
of my life.

Now I stand outside the gilded cage
No longer blamed for wars
I did not wage.